WALTZ for the DEATH
by Princess of Radiance
Summary: Neliel and her thoughts on her enemy-protegee-partner-friend. Nnoitra/Neliel.


Third Bleach fic, full of Nnoitra and Nel feels.

* * *

_Push and pull  
pull and push  
like the tides, in and  
out  
never giving, never taking  
locked in equal  
each wanting less,  
more,  
each other  
a dance that neither wants  
to stop  
or win  
or lose  
just dance until the end_

**WALTZ for the DEATH**

From the moment she laid her eyes on him, the Octava with the loud voice and louder reiatsu, everything he was proudly proclaiming "I am here, I will not be unnoticed," she knew he was someone who needed protection. Not from others, but from himself.

She was not wrong. She watched as his loud presence translated into loud voice-loud actions-blood-violence-death. She followed him, his second shadow, watching as he proved his strength to himself over and over and over while convincing no one else of it, least of all her.

He was so very weak, childishly weak, immature and loud and filling the air with spat words and the smell of blood and not understanding why he was weak. He hated pity, but was so pitiable. She saw him as weak, because he did not understand the value of strength. He though strength meant kill and kill and kill until you are on top, the best among a pile of corpses. She knew better, and so pitied him his shortsightedness.

She stayed close, stayed watchful, saving him when it suited her and letting him run wild when it suited him. He hated it, hated her, hated every bit of his pitiable existence, but she did not care. She wanted him to be strong, truly strong, for in him she saw a glimmer of what could be. She wanted him to learn the true value of strength, the real meaning in being strong. But he was insistently and stubbornly blind, though she kept trying to restore that sight to him.

She progressed in baby steps, snail-slow and dragging, but every so often a spark of that potential showed through. Why it made her so happy she could not say, only that it warmed her to what was left of her hollow core.

She watched him struggle and fight and scream, and her sad eyes took it all in gracefully and serenely, not betraying her disappointment as he could not learn, would not learn, refused her lessons with the grace of a beast.

With the grace of a beast, he led their dance, each watching the other, holding their desires – her for him to learn, him to destroy her – close to their heartless cores, watching and waiting for the other to make a move, neither wanting to be the first to destroy their careful equilibrium, the volatile quiet tension held taut between them, the threat of violence there but never followed up.

Until the day he cut her mask, cut her power, cut her off from her past and herself, leaving her broken and weak and unknowing, all that was left of him in her was a sadness she couldn't explain, couldn't know was the sorrow in the shattering of their wary, delicate dance, fragile and careful, the breaking of it with her mask, and leaving them both somehow diminished, two parts no longer a whole.

She couldn't know he was walking the sands, emptier and angrier, not understanding why he couldn't think of her without a sting to his triumph, a sour note to his success.

She saw him again, stronger and weaker, and she fought him and she tried though she knew all the blood and tears and trying would not restore their fragile perfect dance to what it was, and now both of them had spiraled out to a new, chaotic, dance that they would carry on and on to their deaths.

There was darkness, then light again and all she could see was him falling, blood in the air and his loud presence choking off like a scream cut short. Her eyes met his and she could see him and he her and she knew and he knew that this was the end of their dance, the music had stopped and the lights had dimmed and all the violence and anger and pity had gone out of the world and as the light in his eye faded she whispered his name across the sand, and he heard it and kept it within him even as his world stopped and hers went on.

He was gone, her weak-strong dance partner had left the floor, and she was alone and lonely and missing him with all her remembered years, his potential dried up and withered like a dead flower, despite all her efforts to keep it alive.

The world was quieter without his presence there like a scream and a fire, and despite everything, she wished it wasn't.


End file.
